Charles Baudelaire Quotes

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.

Charles Baudelaire

There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.

Charles Baudelaire

What good is it to accomplish projects, when the project itself is enjoyment enough?

Charles Baudelaire

What matters an eternity of damnation to someone who has found in one second the infinity of joy?

Charles Baudelaire

The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being defeated.

Charles Baudelaire

A man who from the beginning has long been soaked in the languid atmosphere of a woman, the scent of her hands, her bosom, her knees, her hair, her lithe and flowing clothes,
Sweet bath, suavely
Scented with ointments,
has acquired a delicacy of skin, a refinement of tone, a kind of androgyny without which the toughest and most virile of geniuses remains, when it comes to artistic perfection, an incomplete being.

Charles Baudelaire

Alas, the vices of man, as horrifying as they are presumed to be, contain proof (if only in their infinite expansiveness!) of his bent for the infinite.

Charles Baudelaire

It is the hour when the swarm of malevolent dreams
Makes sun-browned adolescents writhe upon their pillows.

Charles Baudelaire

I am a cemetery loathed by the moon.

Charles Baudelaire

Soon we will plunge into the cold darkness;
Farewell, vivid brightness of our too-short summers!

Charles Baudelaire

There, all is order and beauty only,
Splendor, peace, and pleasure.

Charles Baudelaire

Free man, you will always cherish the sea.

Charles Baudelaire

Nature is a temple where living columns
Let slip from time to time uncertain words;
Man finds his way through forests of symbols
Which regard him with familiar gazes.

Charles Baudelaire

The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds
Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;
But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.